PowerProtect Data Manager 19.9 Administration and User Guide

Restore to the original virtual machine

A Restore to Original Folder and Overwrite Original Files recovers a virtual machine backup to its original location on the vCenter. This operation rolls the virtual machines that you backed up with the protection policy in PowerProtect Data Manager to an earlier point in time. Use this process for restoring the production system.

1. From the PowerProtect Data Manager UI, select Restore > Assets, and then select the Virtual Machine tab.
   The Restore window displays all virtual machines available for restore.
2. Select the checkbox next to the appropriate virtual machines and click Restore.
   You can also use the filter in the Name column to search for the asset name of the specific virtual machine or use the File Search button to search on specific criteria for files within backed-up virtual machines.
   The Restore wizard appears.
3. On the Select Copy page, for each virtual machine that is listed in the table, select the radio button next to the virtual machine and click Choose Copy.
   The Choose Copy dialog box appears.

   NOTE If you click Next without choosing a copy, the most recent backup copy is used.
4. If the backup is on a DD system, click DD, and then select from one of the available copies that display in the table.
5. Click OK to save the selection and exit the dialog, and then click Next.
6. On the Purpose page, select Restore Entire VMs to restore the image-level virtual machine backup to the original location, and then click Next.
   NOTE If you specified any disk exclusions in the virtual machine protection policy, a message appears indicating that disks were excluded from this backup. If one of the excluded disks was a boot disk, the restore might not complete successfully.
   The Restore Type page appears.
7. On the Restore Type page:
   1. Select Restore to Original Folder and Overwrite Original Files.
      NOTE If the system determines that the original virtual machine datastore(s) may be insufficient to complete the restore a warning is displayed. In this case, create more space in the original datastore(s), and then, select Proceed Anyways.
   2. Select the Restore VM Tags checkbox to restore vCenter tags and categories associated with this backup copy. Tags are backed up by default as part of the virtual machine protection policy backup.
      NOTE You can only select this option when restoring entire virtual machines. Any existing tags and categories on the assets in the restore location will be replaced with the tags and categories from the assets in the restored copy. If the tags and categories being restored do not exist in the vCenter Server at the time of the restore, or have been deleted, they will be re-created as part of the restore, along with the tag description and the cardinality settings that determine the relationship of tags within a category. If tags and categories on the vCenter have been renamed since the last backup, the renamed tags and categories will not be overwritten upon restore. For example, if a tag's ID is the same but the tag's name has been changed since the backup, a new tag is created based on the tag name in the backup copy being restored.

      Upon successful restore, the replaced tags and categories will not be deleted in the vSphere Client, and can be viewed in the Tags & Custom Attributes window, or the Tags pane of the Summary window when the virtual machine is selected.

   3. Select Restore Storage Policies if you also want to restore any virtual machine disk-level or non-disk specific storage policy assignments.
      If you select this option but the backup copy was taken with PowerProtect Data Manager 19.5 and earlier, or the storage policy is not available, the virtual machine restore will proceed but any storage policy association will not be restored.

      NOTE Enabling this option requires vCenter version 6.7 and later.
   4. For low-bandwidth environments, select Enable DDBoost Compression.
      This option reduces network usage by compressing data on the protection storage system before transfer to the VM Direct Engine, which decompresses the data. Compression reduces restore times but increases CPU usage on both systems.
8. Click Next.
   The Networks page appears if the virtual machine was backed up using PowerProtect Data Manager 19.9 or later. Otherwise, the Options page appears.
9. The Networks page displays the network adaptors and associated networks the virtual machine had used when it was backed up. Click Next after reviewing this information and optionally performing one or both of the following actions.
   NOTE If a network used by an adapter is no longer accessible to the current virtual machine, a warning is displayed, and a different network should be selected for that adapter.
   1. To select a different network, click the associated drop-down control in the Network column, and then select an entry from the list.
   2. To change the initial power-on connection status of a network adapter, select or clear the associated check box in the Connect at Power On column.
   If the current virtual-machine disk configuration is identical to the copy being restored, the Summary page appears, but if there is a mismatch, the Options page appears. This page displays the current configuration of the virtual machine along with any disks that have been added since the last backup.
10. On the Options page, for any hard disks in the current virtual machine configuration that were not part of the backup copy:
    • Select Delete disks that will be detached to remove these disks upon restore.
    • Clear Delete disks that will be detached to keep these disks in their original folders on the virtual machine after the restore. These disks will not be in the virtual machine configuration, but after the restore you can then use the vSphere Client to manually reattach or download these disks as appropriate.
11. Click Next.
    The Summary page appears with a confirmation message indicating that the virtual machine will be powered off and that the virtual machine in the datastore will revert to the point in time of the selected backup copy before being powered back on.
12. On the Summary page, click Restore.
    An informational dialog box appears indicating that the restore has started.
13. Go to the Jobs window to monitor the restore.
    A restore job appears with a progress bar and start time.